Lockdown
by Swashbucklist
Summary: A grim surprise awaits TOM and Sara amidst a strange gathering of derelict spacecraft: two ships among the wreckage have remained active through the years ... and either one could spell doom or salvation for the Absolution.
1. Here There Be Monsters

Disclaimer: I don't own Toonami.

A/N: Lockdown may have been a slight disappointment in that it didn't have as much action as Toonami's previous "Total Immersion Event", The Intruder, but it did have a lot going for it. Particularly, the atmosphere. It started off with the title being spelled out in a heap of garbage, and throughout the rest of the movie that theme of waste and wreckage was prevalent in the setting, the trashing of the DOKs, and the _Absolution_'s impending destruction. The music, colors, and other visual aspects helped, too. Perhaps if it had been longer, shown as a full-length movie later on Toonami, and had featured TOM doing more than walking around fixing things, they would have been able to do much, much more with all of Toonami's TIE's.

* * *

**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 1: Here There Be Monsters  


* * *

**

Rusted, shredded scrap metal, piled high in a heavy-duty scrap carrier, lay uselessly underneath a layer of dust and dim overhead lights. Some of the garbage still glowed with heat or disposable power packs, and amber lighting swished over its jagged unevenness like scanners as the heap glided down a cargo passage. Reaching its destination, the scrap carrier's doors sprung open, dumping its metallic payload into a pit and sending up a cloud of dust.

The Clyde that was doing the pulling was clamped inside a set of bars at the front of the scrap carrier. It's next stop: freight elevator. Firing up its intigrav power cell, Clyde hauled the big barge inside and came eye-to-face with the Toonami host and captain of the _Absolution._

"Oh, hey. Sorry," TOM said, stepping into the corner to make room for Clyde. He'd wanted to take a ride on the more spacious and powerful freight elevator for once, but rarely had a chance to because it was always occupied by the scrap carrier. Clyde's collection assignment had been a good opportunity to enjoy it, but now the fun was over. The two robots shared an awkward moment as they watched the floor counter blaze through digits.

Moments later, TOM stepped onto the _Absolution_'s bridge beneath soft but strong lighting sconces and the curved framework that was wrapped around the shell-shaped bubble window over his head. "So I just rode twenty floors on the freight elevator with a garbage Clyde," he said to his AI companion, taking a seat.

"Well cheer up," Sara replied indicatively. "Here's something your going to love."

"Oh, yeah?" TOM was intrigued.

"I'm picking up a signal I don't recognize. It's beyond my capabilities." Her tone itself suggested how unusual that was. "Or so old that the encryption code isn't in my memory banks."

"Log it. We'll take a crack at it later. Anything else in the area?"

"Scanning ... There's a lot of interference, and something's giving off a huge energy signature."

"How far away is it?" TOM asked, getting up and pacing over to the window to see if there was anything within range of sight yet. All he saw so far was that this area had an abundance of rust-colored nebulas.

"We're close," Sara told him. "The interference makes it hard for the signal to broadcast very far. I can't translate it, but I think it may be a distress signal."

TOM walked back over to stand before Sara's holographic avatar. "Maybe somebody broke down," he suggested. "But why aren't they using a normal shipping code?"

"Don't know," she said mysteriously. "Head to the observation deck."

"Alright. Fire up the DOKs."

"The DOKs? I hardly think there's any danger."

"Oh, no," TOM said defiantly over his shoulder as he turned to leave. "I went out last time, remember? Better safe than sorry."

"Understood."

Back in the normal single-occupant elevator pod, TOM rocketed up toward and even higher level on the ship. The observation deck, encased in a polarized window and backed by more sleek framework, arced out of the ship like a hump on a camel. Inside, on the deck floor itself, a shell rose out of the center of the platform and split in half to expose the projector. TOM walked around it to the wafer-shaped control console. "Show me what ya got," he said, activating the projector. Through the window before him, he could see more of the cosmos than anywhere else on the ship, save for standing outside, but right now his only focus was the information Sara was providing.

The image was jittery, due to the disruptive signals she had mentioned already, but clear enough to make out details. They were entering a field of giant-sized debris. Pieces of ships, satellites, probes, stations, and anything else that was big and made of metal was broken and floating here like an industrial asteroid cluster. But the focus of the glitch-ridden video feed was the centerpiece of this galactic dumb, a space-faring vehicle larger than TOM had ever seen before. It was long, straight, and sharp, with pointy spires protruding in a fan-shaped row on one side.

The information on the screen left TOM bewildered. The numbers indicated that the evil-looking ship was actually ten times larger than the _Absolution_ itself! He gazed at it without believing, realizing it must be not a ship, but a facility of some sort. But what kind? It's design seemed inspired in equal parts by a wicked bayonet and a dangerous sea creature.

"Wow ... What is that?" he asked in what may have been fearful wonder. Even he didn't know what the undercurrent in his own voice was at that moment.

"No idea," Sara told him for the second time that day. "There's too much interference. We'll have to get closer for any solid readings."

"Not sure if I like that idea. Look at those ships, they look derelict. Can we get closer to the one broadcasting the distress signal?"

"Hold on." Sara's visual scanners darted to and fro until it zoomed in on the ship in question. "There." It was a small star cruiser that looked like a saucer with a winged pilot compartment on its front edge, sandwiched width-wise between tube-shaped engine nacelles.

TOM could tell just by looking at it that it was one of the oldest models he'd ever seen. "That guy may not even still be in there!" he exclaimed. "Tell ya what, take us into a slow coast into the field. Get the shields up and keep scanning. We're sending the DOKs to that ship."

"You're just looking for an excuse to play with your new toys," Sara remarked. She'd figured him out already.

"Got me there," TOM confirmed. "Prep the boys for launch."

* * *

Down in the _Absolution_'s spacious cargo bay stood an army of motionless, cylindrical robots in eight groups of one hundred by one hundred. Upon activation, their bucket-heads rotated like turrets to expose a trio of lenses. The rest of their bodies unfolded like Transformers, producing arms and an array of thrusters.

In a smooth, orderly fashion, their thrusters popped to life and they lifted off the cargo bay floor one by one, headed for the exit. The massive doors parted, allowing the legion of DOKs out into space. Among the swarm was a Clyde; Sara would need it if she wanted to have any eyes on the scene.

* * *

Up in the screens room, the _Absolution_'s AI had some news. "TOM, I've got something," she said while the Toonami host looked over the visuals she was displaying. She put up a representation of the nasty-looking ship surrounded by the not-quite-as-large junk in the vicinity that surrounded it. "Look at the trajectory of all these craft. All of this debris is slowly moving towards that giant ship."

"What's the deal with that thing?" TOM wondered aloud, becoming more baffled by the minute. "I thought this system was deserted. Why would all this be way out here, unless ..."

Suddenly, realization struck him like a bullet to the brain, and he understood what was happening. Or at least he partly understood. He spun toward Sara's avatar, shouting, "Sara, full reverse! I'll meet you on the bridge!" Then he took off down the walkway.

"Why?" she asked curiously even as she initiated the command.

"Just do it!"

TOM made it to the bridge in a dead run. But just as he reached it, the entire spacecraft shuddered, throwing him off his feet. Momentum carried his face into the corner of the chair, knocking him backward and onto the floor. Groaning, he pushed himself up. "Man ... what the heck is going on?"

Systems that had remained long dormant within the massive, frightening ship were now coming alive and reaching out towards the _Absolution._ They found it and latched on resolutely. The _Absolution_'s backward retreat was suddenly halted as its engines were dried of power. They flickered and died.

Sara felt sections of her ship going offline. She didn't even have to think about what the cause of it was (the big scary ship, obviously), but stopping it was another matter. Suddenly, she sensed a jamming signal disguised within the tractor beam coming her way. She reacted to it with faster-than-lightning speed before it could shut her down.

"TOM, the engines are offline," Sara spoke over the alarms. "That thing has us caught in a tractor beam and is pulling us in. It's blocking all high-frequency broadcasts."

Settled into his chair, TOM was still recovering from the surprise and pain. "Ah, man ..." he groaned. "What about any outgoing signals?"

"We still have broadcasting capabilities, but the frequency is modular. I can adjust faster than that thing can block it. But it takes an unbelievable amount of processing power, so I can't do anything else."

"So no distress signal, huh?" He sighed. "And the DOKs, what's the status on them?"

"You designed them to interface on _my_ band frequencies only. So we can't reach them."

Outside, what was once an impressive army of reconnaissance droids was now another mass of useless debris. The DOKs were drifting about helplessly, bumping into one another like billiard balls.

"Man, what is it with our luck? How long before we get sucked in by this thing?"

"A long time," Sara replied while calculations scrolled by on either side of her big blue head. "Roughly, one hundred-seventy-eight years, seventeen days, ten hours, and twelve minutes."

"Roughly, huh?"

"Roughly."

"Ahh, so I guess that means these ships have been trapped here for a hundred years, too," he realized.

"Very high probability. It wouldn't be a problem for us if we didn't need power. But we'll go down. Soon."

"Maybe not," TOM responded, a thought beginning to take shape in his head. "I've got an idea. Crazy, but it just might work. What if someone else logged onto our systems and controlled the DOKs remotely?"

"Interesting," Sara said with genuine interest. "Perhaps ... If I position more power to the receivers ... Yes, it may work. But why aren't the DOKs being affected by that thing as well?"

"Who knows? Who _cares?_" He dismissed the question with a semblance of a shrug. "We know they can move. Let's not waste any more time."

"Okay, but here's the big question: who within range could possibly operate the DOKs?" Sara asked. "If we can neither contact anyone for help, or even send a signal to be traced to our location, who is going to pilot them?"

"It'll take some fixing, but think I have a candidate ... Someone with at least enough power on his ship to send a distress signal." Stepping back up to the curve of the reinforced glass shell that enclosed the bridge, TOM set his sights on the tiny cruiser, still broadcasting its distress call, which had drawn them to his place to begin with.


	2. Connecting the DOKs

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: In the canon narrative of Lockdown, TOM's idea was to have "somebody on Earth" log onto the Toonami website so they could operate the DOKs. That was the tie-in to the online game. As far as story flaws go, the problem is that if they had had any connection to anywhere would have been as easy to summon help as describing their location and saying, "Hey, come rescue us." I thought about how to get around this, and realized the answer was very close by: the mysterious ship that we never learned anything about, other than it was really freakin' old.

* * *

**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 2: Connecting the DOKs

* * *

**

"In order to get the DOKs moving," Sara explained, "the person in that star cruiser sending the distress signal will have to find a way to interface with my control systems. That my be our biggest problem, though. His own computer may be too ancient to be compatible with the ones onboard the _Absolution._"

"Chance we gotta take," TOM said from the cargo bay. "Let's just let him give it a shot, since we have no other ideas other than sending _me_ over to the big scary ship. I'm all set, by the way."

In front of him, the bay doors opened. The last time he'd stood in the cargo bay and watched those massive doors part before him, he'd marveled at the grand view of a black infinity glittering with stars. This time it was not so grand. Rusted, deteriorated husks of long-dead ships, probes, and satellites filled the scene. And being in the middle of the field meant that they crowded his vision in all directions. Add to that the rust-red nebulas that characterized this entire vicinity as an industrial waste zone, and he was not happy to leave the clean interior of his own ship, power or no power.

_And speaking of power ..._ TOM thought, glancing down at the mobile field supply, which he held in his large hand like a suitcase. _Just a 'nuther day at the office._

"You'll need find some way to hook that power supply up to whatever generator the cruiser has," Sara continued, still instructing him. "Then, when he has enough energy to link to the _Absolution_, he will hopefully be able to access and control the DOKs with his own processing power. I'd use my own, but if I devote so much as a percentage to any task other than blocking the monster ship's transmissions, it'll break through and shut down _everything,_ including me. And then we won't even have control over so much as a light switch."

"Yeah, I get it," TOM said. "As long as the DOKs aren't vulnerable to the tractor beam, that means I'm in the clear, too, right?" He thought back to Sara's theory that the DOKs' immunity to the tractor beam was due to their size.

"Chance we gotta take," she replied. "Good luck."

"Great, thanks." He pushed off with his feet in a gesture similar to the motion one made when shooting hoops, then activated his jetpack and swooped out into the lifeless vacuum. It was dense with large bodies of metal, and he was forced to make detours around every derelict object in his path on the way to the star cruiser. There was plenty of smaller debris that he had to dodge frequently. Deep space had never felt so congested or decrepit. It was also a little creepy knowing that all the wreckage he flew amongst was held in the grip of that giant, terrifying ship, and being pulled toward it so slowly that the movement could not be seen. It was so far in the distance and yet huge in his vision.

"If the situation weren't so tense and serious, I'd feel like listening to 'Cosmic Castaway' from that part in _Titan A.E._," he said as he made a wide arc around something that looked like a truck-sized Death Star.

"No music," Sara ordered. "Especially not now. Besides, if anything, I should be playing the _Mission: Impossible_ theme for you."

"Almost there." TOM angled around an array of turbines and the star cruiser came into view. There was no indication that anyone was alive in there. Approaching cautiously, he gripped its starboard engine pod with his free hand and peered at the ship's condition. Ultraviolet exposure, deep space debris, and age had left it scratched and scorched from stem to stern. He fired a burst from his jetpack and floated in the zero-gravity over to the cruiser's fuselage. Fixing his feet to its surface, he knelt and began looking for a hatch or other opening that would allow him access to its energy systems. Finding one, and hoping the pilot didn't mind this invasion, he pried it up with his bare fingers and began hooking the mobile power supply up to it.

"That should work," he said, rising to his feet to stand atop the cruiser. "Send the dude a friend request."

"Connecting." The whining and chittering of computer language could be heard over their mutual link. TOM knew she was walking a fine line here: too much focus on helping the occupant of this star cruiser get interfaced with her systems meant she would lose the ongoing battle with the scary ship's constant barrage of evil transmissions. Then she'd be shut down terminally, the _Absolution_ would lose all power, and he would be even more helpless than he was right now.

He gazed out at the distant, threatening ship, the one that was a thousand times bigger than anything here and had total domination over everything in the area. In his not-too-distant past, he'd faced one or two actual monsters ... but this thing scared the crap out of him in a way that was more disturbing than he'd ever felt before.

"The cruiser is active," Sara announced.

"That's good news," TOM replied, unable to take his gaze away from the domineering ship.

"He's connected, but seems to be having a great deal of trouble interfacing with my systems. Making some adjustments ..."

TOM finally looked away from the galactic monstrosity and walked a few steps along the cruiser's hull. "Come on, buddy, we need you."

"I think we've got it," said Sara.

TOM watched. Far off, he could see a fuzzy patch in space where the clustered army of DOKs had lost their connection and begun drifting. After less than a minute of waiting, he saw their thrusters bursting to life. Then they continued toward the dark giant of a ship.

"Yeah! Way to pull through, mystery guest."

"They are proceeding inside, and I'm receiving all their visuals and logged data."

"That's one job done," TOM said. "What's next on the agenda?"

"Get back here and start fixing this bloody ship, Tom."

"On my way." Igniting his jetpack again, he was soon dodging and swerving back through the space debris toward the _Absolution._ The day was far from over.


	3. Out of Kick

Disclaimer: Toonami is copyright Cartoon Network.

* * *

**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 3: Out of Kick

* * *

**

The DOKs were prepped and ready to get things fixed. Sara didn't even have to scan the ship for an entrance; even a blind Clyde could see the gaping wound in its starboard flank. The DOKs poured in and got busy examining the innards of the monstrosity, finding routes, locating tools, and accessing whatever terminals they could find.

While filing into the beast's many bellies, one of the first and most obvious things they discovered was a massive array of gigantic metal rollers. They were meant to spin toward each other on powerful torques, dragging in bodies of metal from outside to be churned up by the enormous blades that filled out their lengths and fit together like teeth. Each one must have been at least ten times the size of an engine on the _Absolution,_ and they were solid metal the whole way through. They were also ground zero for all the debris in the area that was being drawn in. Taking a look beyond and beneath those tools of destruction, the DOKs spilled into a bay filled with even more churning, grinding, and cutting machinery. All of it was dormant. Evidently, the beast was waiting to be fed for its digestive system to kick in.

A chill seemed to race through Sara at the fact that she may end up in there, no matter how long it took. As a safety precaution, she suggested to have only a few teams at a time in that bay. She was glad when the order was taken seriously. The individual in the immobile star cruiser was doing all the work while she was just supervising and zipping instructions to him. That was the extent of her involvement in physically solving the problem. Frustration was an unfamiliar feeling to her, but she ignored it because she had her own work to do. Aside from receiving and logging information, she was constantly doing battle with the gargantuan ship's jamming transmissions. But that still left her with more than enough brain-space to talk to TOM.

"Man, this is such a pain in the ass," she heard him grumble. He was currently crouched just outside the door to the reactor room. Making repairs would have been easier had the hallway not been as dark as sin. The Clyde keeping an eye on his progress was helping out with its built-in light, through which smoke drifted in a way that seemed to give substance to its flourescent beam.

"How's it going?" Sara asked.

"Not too good," replied TOM, still working on the door's circuitry. "Thing blew when we tried to reverse and shorted out everything on this floor. It's gonna take a while."

"Same here."

"Oh yeah?"

"The star cruiser can only operate a small number of DOKs at a time while the rest follow, which makes our progress very slow. It's like working with the best computer on the market, and then being downgraded to something with a floppy drive."

"Hey, as long as it's working," TOM said, although he heard the aggravation in her professional voice. He imagined she was being generous with her comparison. Being limited in this way was probably more like having one's arms and tongue removed. Wanting to get her mind off it and anxious to know what was happening outside, he asked, "How're the DOKs doing?"

"They made it inside the ship, for starters," she said as updates continued to stream in. "As best I can tell from the feeds, it's some sort of enormous trash compactor."

"What's it doing way out here?"

"I haven't figured that out yet. All the equipment is in disarray. The hole blown in the side seems very old as well."

"So somebody tried to take it out," TOM deduced.

"And failed," confirmed Sara. "But the DOKs _have_ uncovered some useful information. Would you like to take a look?"

"Just tell me, I gotta work on this."

"Point one: that ship is fully automated with no onboard AI. It's on autopilot. Point two: we're not long from finding the location of the tractor beam generator. If they can get to it, they may be able to knock it out. Point three: I've located additional weapons and tools that the DOKs can use. These may make it easier for them to take care of the tractor beam."

"Well that sounds nice," said TOM, adding some finishing touches to his work on the door's circuitry. He rose from his crouch, hands on hips, as it swished open. "I got the door open," he announced.

Clyde lit the way for him into the equally dark interior of the reactor room. In every direction it aimed its light, smoke wafting from burnt-out mechanics filled the beam. "It looks like I have enough power to reboot the system. After that, I don't know." He booted up the control console and looked pointedly at the Clyde through which Sara was seeing him. "Take care of that tractor beam."

"On it."

While TOM got busy restarting the reactor, the DOKs were on the verge of making one or two new discoveries. A team had found the location of the ship's bridge, which to her meant access its computer core, finally. Maybe there would be some coherent information hidden deep within it. She sent a Clyde to watch, and it arrived just as they were breaking in. It was a simple and satisfying feat for them to bash down some doors.

As Clyde followed the larger robots inside and cast its light around, the first thing that struck Sara was that it did not look like a typical bridge. There were no seats or terminals where crew could sit for long periods of time, just consoles that were built right into the walls and linked directly to the computers that controlled the ship. There weren't even any windows to offer a view of the stars.

But comfort or no comfort, the computers were accessible. The DOKs hooked up to them and started downloading. Every scrap of what they found was relayed directly to Sara, who watched expectantly as the core computer's data streamed in. There was nothing there. The data was missing.

_This is so odd,_ she thought. _How can a ship's entire computer be completely blank?_ To an AI like herself who was practically made of information, the absence of it was disturbing. Whoever the last person was to have command of this vessel had put some effort into making sure there was nothing at all left onboard. It was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and they'd only scratched the surface of the enigma part.

Just as her thoughts were drifting toward sending TOM onto the ship, she was interrupted by another group of DOKs that were about to make a very literal breakthrough. Toward the bottom of the trash compactor's throat (the bay with all the giant blades) they had found a thick metal security door framed in black-and-yellow diagonal stripes. Sara watched through Clydecam 09647 as two DOKs with plasma torches finished tracing a white-hot line around the frame of the security door. They'd begun at the top, and now the twin beams of their torches met bottom-center.

At last, they were getting somewhere.

The entire team applied its collective muscle to the barrier, and in no time it was forced inward, crashing to the floor inside an access tunnel. The group filed in and scanned the area ... and immediately located the broad metal surface of another security door.

Sara sighed in whatever manner an AI could sigh. This was apparently going to take a while ... But then again, it also meant they were getting close to something sensitive onboard the monstrous ship. Most likely the tractor beam generator, as she'd already theorized. Just a few more security measures to get through, and this day would soon be over with no further damages done.


	4. A Fistful of DOKs

Disclaimer: Toonami is copyright Cartoon Network.

* * *

**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 4: A Fistful of DOKs

* * *

**

"There, that should do it," TOM said, placing the removable control panel back into its console. He'd spent the last ten minutes tinkering with it while Clyde hovered around him like a helpful firefly. "Here goes." Miming the gesture of cracking his knuckles, he hit a switch, making the reactor awkwardly stutter to life. The bay filled with indication lights from the reactor's housing and several light fixtures that arced across the ceiling. Energy slowly crept its way into the Talon ST's, which had so far been hanging uselessly on either side of the ship. But they would remain useless until that tractor beam was shut down.

Job done, TOM turned back to Clyde. "Sara, we're back online. It's a little sketchy, but it works. Where am I off to next?"

"You're off to the machine room. We fried the conduits in there."

"Got it." He started off, Clyde following. "How are the DOKs doing out there?"

"Group 'A' is closest to shutting down the tractor beam. They're near the generator, but the entrance is heavily guarded."

"I kinda wish I could help," he said, casually tossing his cutting/soldering tool up and down. Reaching the machine room, he opened up the garage door-sized access hatch, revealing a row of terminals, fried electronics, and a wave of smoke that had been waiting to jump out into the corridor. He knelt and got to work soldering wires and rebooting the machines. "Any progress on the cruiser's signal?"

"Not much. I've narrowed the time frame down to two thousand years ago. It has elements common of codes from back then."

TOM whistled. "That _is_ old."

"I'll translate it soon," she promised.

* * *

It appeared, however, that "soon" would be able to come _after_ shutting down the tractor beam. The DOKs were nearly finished cutting through that second security door. Leaving the blade-filled bay behind, she moved her Clyde inside the access tunnel. It had some trouble seeing through the smoke and dust, but once it was close enough, Sara could finally see the huge gap where the security door had just been. The DOKs were already moving in. Clyde followed them and watched.

The team filed into the generator room and spread out evenly in either direction. There were no lights in here and still too much grit floating in the zero-gravity to see through, so they scanned their environment using infrared sensors. Bit by bit, they mapped out the dimensions of the room and its contents, which included nothing more than some consoles and wall-mounted pipes. Lastly, they located the entrance to the generator itself. But there was something else there ... a massive signature hunkering directly in front of that entrance.

As the DOK observed, the huge form rose from the floor to eclipse the entire doorway. Its single optic receptor came to life with a red light that pierced through the airborne grit, and at least six dangerous-looking limbs reached out to spread themselves apart.

Then a bolt from an unusually powerful electro-cannon flashed through the murky space and struck the DOK dead-center of its face, blowing its head apart. Next, a high-caliber machine gun tore loose, sweeping around in an arc that quickly and efficiently took out all the other DOKs in the room. A moment later, the gigantic ship's artificial gravity came online, allowing the fallen robots' bullet-riddled corpses to crash to the floor.

While Clyde hid behind a console, Sara sent an alert to the star cruiser, instructing him to have all DOKs double-time it to the generator and engage the adversary. They responded immediately.

Clyde floated a few inches to the left, in view of whatever had just eliminated six DOKs in under five seconds, so Sara could get a look at it. In response to the artificial gravity, which was probably activated as a security measure, all the dust and grit in the room were now settling to the floor, slowly and ominously unveiling the deadly machine.

The first discernable detail was its two large weapons, an eight-barreled machine gun and a boxy cannon that fired an electro-beam. They were held aloft like shoulders and were mounted on opposite poles of a massive, ball-shaped chassis. Below them were two sets of arms, both equipped with long, sweeping blades. And as the last of the dust fell away like a curtain, Sara saw four more arching blades slung underneath it. The machine had an anti-gravity power cell like the Clydes, so those blades were free to slice-and-dice without touching the floor.

_Well, this ought to be challenging,_ Sara thought to herself while bitterly cursing her expectations from earlier. Then reinforcements swept in and a battle erupted.

* * *

"Man, this stuff is complicated," TOM said, more to himself than to Sara, from his once-again crouched position in the machine room. A spark of angry feedback made the pen-sized tool he was using fly out of his hand. "_Dyah!_ ... I don't think I was built for this," he complained.

Sara glanced at the Clyde's video feed of DOKs being sliced into pieces and said cheekily, "Would you rather be out on that ship with the DOKs?"

TOM rose to his feet. "I'd prefer a stand-up fight to all this hangin' around. First thing I thought back on the observation deck was, 'hey, it'd be smarter to let the DOKs handle it, it's way safer in here.' But now it's just driving me nuts!"

"I think I know how you feel."

"Tell me about it. I'm Action Man, not Bob the Builder."

"You're a real tough guy," she said with mock-admiration, but also some genuine affection.

"Glad you noticed."

Sara decided it was high time to give him some updates. "Well listen, I've got news. The mystery guest has located the tractor beam chamber."

"What's the sit rep?"

"There is a very large security robot guarding the tractor beam. It's lost functionality over the years, but it still has enough firepower to take on any of the DOKs. And it shows no sign of running low on anything, let alone ammo."

"Get'em together in one spot and find them some better weapons," TOM said, glad to have a hand in dealing with some heavy-duty action. It was more like a strategy game than a first-person shooter, but at least he was involved now.

"I could have Clyde unlock some more storerooms to see what we can find. There may be some weapon caches we haven't discovered yet, powerful enough to give the DOKs an advantage."

"_Wurd,_" TOM said flatly. "But the key is to get them all together. Unless they go after it at the same time, they don't stand a chance." He scooped up his tool.

"Agreed."

A few final fizzing noises accompanied TOM's handiwork. "Okay, that's the last of the conduits," he said, finishing up. "I'm heading up to the bridge. If you can spare some room in your brain, run some diagnostics."

"I'll tell the mystery guest it's time to form a single team."

"See you upstairs."


	5. Robot Wars

Disclaimer: Toonami is copyright Cartoon Network.

* * *

**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 5: Robot Wars

* * *

**

Outside the _Absolution,_ nothing appeared to have changed within the last thirty minutes. The ether was still black and starless, its nebulas remained a rusty orange, and every object within range of the trash compactor, including Toonami's Deep Space Explorer, continued to float in almost the exact same position as before. But at the nucleus of the interstellar junkyard, inside the giant trash compactor itself, the situation had never been more intense.

"Diagnostics have been completed," Sara informed TOM as he stepped onto the _Absolution_'s bridge. "A few systems are still offline, but at least the engines are functioning."

"Great, so then at least we'll have mobility," said TOM. "If and when we get out of this thing."

"If and when indeed," Sara agreed. "At the moment I'm calculating a sixteen percent probability that the DOKs can defeat the sentry robot. Both Clydes are sending us a live feed of the battle, but it doesn't seem to be going well."

"Oh, great." TOM felt his spirits sink. The third Clyde hovered up next to him and watched as two of Sara's holographic windows lit up with flashing weapons and shredding metal.

From two different angles they saw the sentry robot, its optic receptor glowing an angry red, as it lurched and pivoted, cutting down waves of attackers with all eight of its bladed arms. It slashed through their armor, sliced off arms or thrusters, and frequently cut them completely in half. And in addition to slashing them apart with indestructible scalpels, the sentry droid persistently alternated between pumping them full of holes with armor piercing rounds from its machine gun and overloading their innards with its electro-cannon, causing them to explode. The steel floor of the chamber was littered from corner to corner with the corpses of DOKs, all of them motionless and occasionally bursting with dying sparks. As TOM, Sara, and Clyde looked on, the sentry robot backhanded a sneaky DOK that had tried to slip around back, hurling it into the solid metal wall where it crunched like a Pepsi can.

"Jeez ... Would you look at that thing? They'll never win!"

Sara said, "I tried to relay your teaming up advice to the mystery guest. Remember how I told you that he can only operate a small number of DOKs at a time?"

"Yeah? Don't tell me ..."

"He's at maximum capacity as we speak," she said.

"So unless one of them gets a lucky hit, we're not going anywhere," TOM concluded.

"Plus, that sentry robot is very heavily armored," Sara added. "The odds of finding a weakness or taking it out by chance are extremely unlikely."

"Okay, then let's think of something else." TOM began pacing the bridge, his brain working furiously. Returning the engines to working order had gotten his hopes up, but now things had become a lot harder all thanks to somebody's sadistic idea of a security device. "Relying on luck never works during boss fights anyway," he said. "Have you come up with any ways to outsmart it?"

"He's attempted at least half a dozen different tactics, but that thing is simply too destructive and too hard to breach. There's no luring it away from its defensive position and no sneaking past it by any other means."

"Well, that shoots down two of my ideas, including the one I hadn't thought of yet," TOM grumbled. "Damn thing should be a quarterback ... Hey, maybe the mystery guest would let me into his ship so I can have a crack at that big beastie. I'm used to holding a game controller, but it's the same principle, right?"

"That is also very unlikely." An alert caught Sara's attention. She tilted her holographic blue head to acknowledge it, then said to TOM, "There's more bad news."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, completely. The power supply you pugged into his ship earlier is running low. He won't be able to keep the fight up for much longer."

"So I'd better get out there and hook him up with a new one, huh?"

"That would be ideal."

TOM sighed. "I was feeling pretty good about five minutes ago."

"Well, feel better. Now you can get some more fresh air."

* * *

Once again, TOM swerved and darted through the debris-clogged vacuum as fast as the jetpack could carry him with a power supply clutched in one hand. He considered running the briefcase joke through his mind again, but decided it was getting old. That, and he didn't have the time for jokes; the mystery guest's star cruiser was dead ahead.

Sara was speaking to him. "Between the time you disconnect the old supply and the new one starts feeding into his ship, the DOKs will be inactive for a few seconds. I'll alert him ahead of time."

"I could probably find a way to bypass that," TOM suggested.

"There isn't enough time, Tom. We're down four hundred and twenty-two DOKs already."

"Yeah, but in the time it takes for them to come back online—_holycrap!_"

Without warning, the cruiser let loose a salvo of laser-fire from four of its gun ports. With a surge of whatever substituted for adrenaline in his mechanical body, TOM pulled up and away from the ship. He arced backward to find cover behind a junction of metal plates shaped like a lily-pad. The red laser beams scorched his makeshift bunker for several more seconds before they ceased fire.

"That was a close call, whatever happened."

"What _did_ happen?"

"Guy just shot at me. I thought he knew I was helping him. What's going on?"

"I've alerted him of the incident, but this is a one-way connection we have," Sara responded while TOM took hold of a protruding piece of metal to keep himself in place. "My guess is, you triggered a security measure that was automatically activated once he had enough power running through his ship."

"I wish everyone's security measures would stop giving us such a hard time," TOM complained. "So he's gonna keep throwing the DOKs into that security robot until it tears up every last one of them or until they start floating around aimlessly again."

"There isn't much else he _can_ do."

TOM groaned in frustration, rubbing his hard, metallic head with an oversized hand. "Are you sure you can't give him a hand with the DOKs?"

"I would love to take up some of his slack," the AI replied. "But as long as most of my processing power is still being used to fight the jamming signal that's trying to shut down our entire ship, I can't move an inch."

"And there's no other way to override that signal?"

"No. It's embedded in the tractor beam. Nothing can be done until it's shut down by the DOKs."

"Which aren't much more than target practice," TOM murmured. "So it all boils down to whether or not we can come up with a creative way to take out that security robot." In the desolate vacuum, surrounded by the dead, he tried to think of a way to beat this. With a small jolt of surprise, he realized that the answer was as simple as it was dangerous. He felt like smacking himself.

While it was true that his repair work and Sara's analyses had improved their situation and brought them farther than anyone else in this mass grave had ever come, that wasn't the way to go about things anymore. The time to get physical had finally arrived.

He raised his head and looked at the vast, terrifying trash compactor in the distance. "I think we need an ace in the hole."

"What are you talking about?" Sara inquired suspiciously.

"I'm talking about an ace named Tom. Send Clyde to the armory, Sara ... I need a weapon."


	6. Belly of the Beast

Disclaimer: Toonami is copyright Cartoon Network.

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**LOCKDOWN**

**Episode 6: Belly of the Beast

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**

TOM didn't think it was possible to feel claustrophobic in space, yet here he was floating out in the vacuum, surrounded by death, destruction, and deterioration, with that exact feeling worming its way into his head. As he waited, he kept his gaze fixed on the trash compactor, trying to imagine how he would get in there and handle this. He wasn't sure if his first-person shooter gaming experience was applicable to exchanging fire with a giant metal boss in real life, but he would soon find out. Besides, under the present circumstances, it was his only option. All or nothing.

Clyde finally arrived with a Keifer A-1 rifle slung underneath its eyeball-shaped body. Despite the ticking clock, TOM spared a minute to examine all three of its settings. He didn't want it running low or conking out on him in a critical situation. That was at least one thing he had learned from FPS games.

Once everything checked out, he dove back into the galactic junkyard, giving the star cruiser a wide berth to avoid setting off its proximity lasers again.

Then he was immersed in chaos again, flying full-tilt through the husks of long-dead starcraft. The universe tilted and lurched around him as he navigated the city-sized scrap field. Everything was so crowded that it took a minute before he could finally see the heart of all this destruction. The wickedly-designed ship grew steadily in his vision. It took a ridiculously long time to reach, but by the time it was looming over him, he wasn't surprised. It was a ship for giants ...

... And directly below him was the giant's maw: the tooth-lined entry point for all the scrap metal that was pulled in.

"Tom, we're down to forty-one DOKs," Sara updated him, her voice as cool as ever. "Please hurry."

"The quickest way into the belly of the beast," he said, working up his nerve and shoving his apprehension aside, "is straight down its throat!" He dove headfirst between two giant metal corkscrews.

Almost immediately, he decided that this act of courage had been a bad idea.

When the DOKs had made their way in, they had entered through the breached hull of the trash compactor and plotted a course back here to the deconstruction bay. That had been the smart route to take, because, as TOM discovered, all it took was one physical body passing through the mouth of that bay to activate its machinery.

No sooner was he inside than a dozen more blades, saws, and drills lumbered into motion. He dodged wildly back and forth to avoid a pair of jabbing, saw-toothed spikes meant to further tenderize the metal that was drawn in (in this case, him), then swooped back up as a set of circular saws nearly sliced him in half.

The machinery giving motion to these giant cutting instruments was so impossibly fast and powerful that the steel walls of the bay were shuddering. Had there been air to carry vibration, he was certain he'd be deaf by now. But the vibration in the walls alone was nonetheless overwhelming. He didn't technically have a heart, but if he did, it was jumping outside his chest right now.

Averting another pair of circular saws, he blasted toward the bottom of the pit while they swished behind/above him like spinning pendulums. Staying close to the wall provided safety, so he skimmed it the rest of the way down. He darted around protrusions and openings from which tools of destruction could spring until he was directly across the bay from his target: the tractor beam chamber. He pulled up away from the wall and shot into it.

Sara saw him enter via the Clyde that was hovering in the access tunnel. "Don't barge in recklessly," she warned. "It's dangerous inside."

TOM's mind was so full of panic and relief that he barely heard what she said. Having enormous blades lunging at him from every angle had drained him so much that when he came in for a landing, his legs completely gave out on him. He collapsed in a cloud of dust. Clyde drifted up to make sure he was alive and in one piece (something TOM himself wasn't sure about). After several groups of DOKs had flown by to get slaughtered, he managed to reply, "I don't reckon you gotta worry about me being overconfident, Sara ... Not one bit."

"Well, good."

Rising shakily to his feet and struggling to keep his knees from wobbling, he took up a position just outside the doorway. "Dangerous in there, you say?" He peeked inside to get a look at the security robot. As wave after wave of DOKs hurled past him to engage it, he decided he had been wise to be not quite as confident as they were. Matter of fact, he was actually slightly put off by the unstoppable, homicidal ferocity with which it slaughtered their ranks. One team unloaded high-power lasers into its armor, and were quickly dispatched by a rapid blast from its machine gun turret. Another DOK swept in, pinging away with two handheld plasma pistols. It was impaled on a scalpel and shucked aside. TOM fell back behind the doorframe and steadied his trembling nerves again.

"Okay, here we go," he murmured to Sara with far more courage than he felt. "While they've got it distracted, I'll shoot it."

Sara decided that telling him to be careful would sound ridiculous. "Good luck."

TOM jumped out, ready to blast his enemy with the Kiefer's electro-beam, but hesitated. The sentry robot had a massive electro-beam cannon on its shoulder, so it stood to reason that it would be fairly well guarded against the much skinnier one fired from his diminutive rifle.

His hesitation lasted long enough for the sentry robot to wipe up the attackers it was currently engaged with and find a new target. Pivoting its machine gun to face the new intruder, it unleashed a salvo. The deadly slugs pinged and zipped off scorched metal while TOM took cover again.

"Tom, quit fooling around!"

"I'm not fooling around!" TOM shot back as he pumped the Kiefer to its next setting. "I'm just ... figuring out how to do this the best way."

"I know this is more intense than an FPS game, but you should at least remember how to shoot," Sara retorted.

"Yeah, well ... it's more than I expected. Don't worry, I got this." He began charging the weapon.

Sara shifted her attention to the DOKs; twenty remained. "You'd better get it quick, because we're running out of time. Pretty soon, you'll be facing that thing alone."

By now, his gun was blazing and shuddering with power that struggled to be let loose. "Let's hope I can stay on my feet this time," he muttered, recalling the last time he'd used the Kiefer on this setting. He stepped through the doorway, took aim, and was promptly thrown back into the access tunnel from the recoil. The DOKs made a path for the photon grenade as it shot across the chamber, lighting the place up like a disco ball.

For an insane killing-machine, the sentry robot was programmed with craftier combat techniques than he'd expected. It turned and tilted its shoulder down slightly, putting its electro-beam cannon into the grenade's path. The explosion that followed rippled the walls more furiously than the cutting machinery outside. But even before the smoke had time to clear, there were more bullets punching out of the debris cloud.

The bullets were coming at TOM, who was just rising to his feet with barely enough time to realize he was being shot at. He dove behind one of the heavy control banks for cover. The sentry robot switched tactics and began pouring lead into the bank while continuing to slash away at the DOKs. TOM's cover was quickly being eaten up.

"Sara, you're my eyes!" he yelled, continuously flinching from the bullets that were punching through the metal all around his head.

Between TOM's peril, the plummeting number of DOKs, and the constant knowledge of what the trash compactor was capable of doing, Sara was becoming slightly frantic. She quickly compartmentalized her thoughts so she could process the situation without her emotions becoming inhibitions. Using one of the Clydes, she glanced about and spied an opportunity: in the middle of the floor, rising from the carpet of burnt-out, chopped-up DOKs, one was pushing itself back up by its arm. The other arm was leveling a rocket launcher at the trigger-happy security droid.

"Start charging, now," Sara ordered.

As TOM obeyed, the wounded DOK fired its rocket and scored a direct hit. Very little damage was done, but it accomplished what Sara had hoped: to draw the armored monster's fire away from TOM's flimsy cover.

"_Now,_ Tom!"

A split-second later, TOM was on his feet with his rifle raised while armor-piercing rounds were tearing up the stubborn DOK. He lowered himself into a crouch, but the recoil still sent him sliding backward across the gritty floor. His skid became an awkward tumble until he reached the back of the chamber, tripped, and crashed into a heap of dead DOKs. The terrific explosion occurred at the same moment.

At last, the heat of battle dissipated and stillness settled into the chamber. The _Absolution_'s robotic army took up a defensive formation, hovering around the dying remains of the security robot. They watched as its scalpel-tipped arms drooped, the red light of its optic receptor faded, and its anti-gravity power cell cut off and died. It crashed to the floor in an upright position. A curious Clyde failed to get out of the way as the droid's massive shell tilted forward and smashed the floating eyeball.

From the far corner, TOM grunted out, "Did I get it this time?" He shoved a limp metal arm out of his face to get a look at the aftermath. Even from its face-down position, he could see that the fallen sentry's armor had been blasted open and that at least one cubic meter of its insides were disintegrated.

"Looks like," Sara confirmed.

"Sweet!" TOM pushed his way out of the burnt robot corpses and crossed the littered chamber, stepping over the sentry's remains to get to the generator. With the few surviving DOKs and their last Clyde gathered around him in the next room, he lowered the setting on his gun and drilled into the generator. Its internal systems ruptured and spat sparks until the machine shut down permanently. It was the most satisfying target he had ever fired at.

"We're free from the tractor beam. All systems are coming back online," Sara informed him.

"Then collect the DOKs and let's blow this joint."

"Affirmative."

Moments later, TOM had left the DOKs behind in the cargo bay and was making a beeline for the bridge. "Alright, time to make ourselves scarce," he said, planting himself in his chair before Sara's holographic image. "Let's not hang around here any longer than we have to."

"Agreed," Sara replied. "Engines and hyperspace drive are online. And what a _relief_ that is."

"Uh-huh ... tell me about it." TOM was watching the transparent canopy over the bridge, anticipating hyperspace entry, when he abruptly remembered something. "D'oh, wait, what about that distress signal? Did you ever break the code?"

"Yes," Sara said factually. "It reads, 'Do not attempt to enter this area. Please help. We are caught in a tractor beam and are being pulled in'."

He felt sheepish all of a sudden. "Heh ... Well, I guess we figured that one out a little late. Where are they now?"

"The ship appears to be firing its engines and is heading away."

Peering out through the shell-shaped canopy, TOM could see that was exactly what the star cruiser was doing.

"Wonder who was in there ..." he thought aloud. He watched it turn and fly off into the cosmos, not really caring much that they hadn't received a "so long", a "thanks-a-lot", or even an "it's-about-damn-time". Whatever the case, it appeared to have enough power to get wherever it was going.

"Hyperspace entry in five ... four ... three ... two ... one ..."

TOM took one last look at the lifeless, powerless, defeated trash compactor. Turning his back on it, he relaxed into his chair as Sara's voice washed over him. Now that the threat was neutralized and they could move through the galaxy under their own power, both the automaton and the AI were coming away from the situation with a refreshed sense of freedom.

"... Mark."

A glowing, churning, rainbow-patterned hyperspace tunnel burst into existence from the black nothingness. With a flash, the _Absolution_ disappeared.

~fin~

* * *

Post Script: My apologies for the shortness of all these chapters. If you have seen the episodes on Youtube, you may notice that there wasn't a great deal of content to expand upon. It's actually amazing I managed to build up to more than four chapters.

Thanks for checking out my fourth Toonami fanfiction. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, the revolution has been televised.


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